TONY HETHERINGTON: Different names, but it's the same council tax cheat

P.A.M.writes:I was cold-called and then visited by a salesman from Household Claims, who said I had grounds for an appeal against the council tax currently paid on my home.

I handed over a cheque for £175 and was promised a receipt would be sent by post, but I have received nothing despite a letter to the company.

I have also noticed that, curiously, all the testimonials on the Household Claims website at billionpoundpayback.co.uk are from customers said to live in Huddersfield and Bradford.

Defiant: Jack Henry has an address at an office block in Potters Bar where his mail is collected

You live in Cheshire and Household Claims gives an address in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, so it is odd that all its happy customers seem to live in just two areas of Yorkshire.

On the other hand, there are lots of odd things about Household Claims, the first of which is that there is no sign of it in Potters Bar. Mail is forwarded from there to an address in Fitzwilliam Street in – surprise, surprise – Huddersfield, west Yorkshire.

As for the Household Claims website, it is registered to a company called CT Review, whose director is Huddersfield businessman Jack Darrell Henry. He has a colourful record as a debt collector and, for a short time, was one of the owners of Scarborough Football Club.

But over the past year or so he has attracted official attention because of his claims to be able to get houses rebanded into a lower council tax bracket. A year ago he was convicted on 14 charges of misleading customers of two of his companies, Council Tax Review and Reband UK. He pocketed fees but did little or nothing to press council tax appeals and he was given a nine-month suspended sentence.

Last September the Insolvency Service won a court order to wind up Reband UK Limited, but by then Henry had begun calling himself Household Claims and to use the Potters Bar address as a front.

Henry did not respond to repeated invitations from me to comment about what has happened to your £175.

Household Claims is not a limited company. It is just Henry himself, using a business name, so you could sue him for your money using the small claims procedure. But I suspect you would be the least of his worries. You see, Henry should never have been a director of CT Review Limited, or any of his other limited companies.

In 2006, when he was calling himself Darrell Littlewood, he was banned from being a company director, and that ban lasts until April of this year.

He could also face problems over Household Claims. As an unlimited business, its official paperwork should reveal who controls it, but it doesn’t. This is also illegal.

David Lodge of West Yorkshire Trading Standards told me: ‘We have had previous dealings with Mr Henry and his various companies. He was in fact prosecuted by West Yorkshire Trading Standards back in January 2012.

‘We continued to get complaints from dissatisfied members of the public concerning problems with companies who offer a service similar to that previously provided by Mr Henry and we are interested to hear from anyone who is still experiencing problems.’

The consumer helpline number is 0845 404 0506.

Sorry, £3,500 you paid claims firm is probably lost

Ms D.M.writes:In 2011, claims management firm Consortium Reclaim assured me that it would be able to help in looking into whether my £28,000 second mortgage was legal.

I was assured there was a good chance it could be written off as unlawful. I paid £3,594 by credit card, after being told that if after three months nothing wrong was found in the terms of the loan, the money would be refunded.

Since then, I have phoned and written but with no response.

Consortium Reclaim is, or rather was, a name used by a company called Consortium Technology Limited.

It was based in Swansea and fully licensed by the Ministry of Justice, which allowed it to pocket upfront fees.

But you are unlikely to see a penny from the company. Last November it simply closed its doors and went into liquidation with debts of more than £600,000.

This happens to claims management firms with monotonous regularity, but the Ministry of Justice refuses to bring in a compensation scheme like the one that covers the financial services industry.

Because you paid by credit card, you may be able to make a claim against the card company itself, unless it can be shown that the Swansea firm did actually carry out some or all of the work it promised. And on this front, things are not so clear. Although you may have thought Consortium Reclaim would advise you, it turns out to have been just a middleman. It handed everything over to a separate company called Credit Clear Services, which is still in business.

It tells me it has sent you a questionnaire requesting more details about your mortgage and when you return this, it will be able to offer advice.

It would be good to see you get something valuable in return for the hefty fee you paid. Let me know how you get on.

I opened a Lloyds free account so why is it asking me to pay?

Mrs C.S.writes:I have been a customer of Lloyds for about 50 years.

I opened a Gold account when the bank first offered this, and was told that as long as I kept £2,500 deposited, which I have done, I would pay no charges.

Now though, Lloyds is trying to force me to pay a monthly fee.

The Gold account comes with fringe benefits and is described by Lloyds as an ‘Added Value Account’.

The no-fees deal was withdrawn in 2005, except for customers like you who had already signed up for it. Everyone opening an account since then has been charged. The bank says: ‘As you would expect, there is a cost attached to proving our Added Value Account benefits to customers.

‘The cost of providing these benefits has increased and therefore we are no longer able to offer a fee waiver to all of our customers.’

Can Lloyds do this? The simple answer is, yes it can.

But you can vote with your feet and either leave Lloyds or switch to an account with no fringe benefits and no charges.

Your Gold account comes with travel insurance, mobile phone insurance, and AA breakdown cover. Do you need all of these? Do you already have them arranged privately?

Packaged accounts frequently include benefits customer neither use nor need. Do not be afraid to ditch them.

My home is now close to being repossessed, despite my offering to pay the mortgage plus some arrears, and despite the house being on the market. My husband has walked out and left me in a mess.

He admitted applying for the £40,000 loan without your knowledge and Santander accepts he forged your signature.

The bank suggested you report him to the police, but you were not willing to do this.

The bank is unwilling to accept it should have made sure you knew about the loan and were happy to accept responsibility for the debt. I am a bit surprised by this.

There were several cases years ago where husbands borrowed against the matrimonial home without the wife’s knowledge. When things went wrong for the families concerned, banks were advised in future to make sure wives obtained independent legal advice before such loans were made.

However, Santander has called off repossession plans and agreed to convert your mortgage to an interest-only one, to give you a chance to make a sale. As your marriage has broken down, you will be able to reduce your husband’s share of the proceeds to reflect the £40,000 loan he received without telling you.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, Room 301, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.